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My last living grandparent passed away this morning. I’ve cried off and on all day. But it’s a weird sadness this time around. I’m sad that I’ve lost my grandmother, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

It just wouldn’t be right to talk about the rival’s fair without a shout out to the best carnival ever, so without further ado I give you Punahou’s 2017 carnival (from February… yes I’m a little late)!

There were rides…

Yup, back on that darn helicopter ride…

And art…

And food…

And maybe the most fun for her (and what has since set the precedent of Ryan and Emma heading over to the “field” on many Saturday nights to toss various balls around and run), hanging out at the track and field an hour before the carnival started in order to score good parking.

And a quick two-hour date at the carnival at night before reporting into our volunteer working shift.

Oh the irony that the big high school rival is the carnival that Emma has been to the most… due entirely to when we moved back to Hawaii… but still. And while I am very partial to my own high school’s carnival, I will grudgingly admit that Emma had a great time.

There was a petting zoo…

And glitter tattoos.. and OMG I did a double take when she just marched over to the girls with her selected tattoo in hand, sat in the chair and waited to get arted. Where did my baby go?

The obligatory ride (okay, rides) and picture on her favorite ride ever – the helicopters.

One of my favorite things I love about my daycare is that they bring in outside vendors (soccer shots, my gym, etc.) so you can sign up your kids for classes without worrying about having to actually take them anywhere. I realize that this is also a gimmick because now I’m paying for extra classes AND daycare and they are going on simultaneously, but those are the breaks.

Anywho, the soccer shots trainers had come around a couple times since I enrolled Emma at her daycare but I had always figured she was too little. However, the third time soccer shots came around Emma started her all-out mission to make sure I signed her up. She even made her teachers tell me she wanted to play soccer so it wasn’t just coming from her. That kid, I tell you.

So I signed her up and she LOVED it. I’ve never seen her so proud as when I picked her up after the last lesson of the spring session and she ran to show me her “award” for completing the class.

The summer session started up a couple weeks ago and since it was such a big hit the first time around, I immediately signed her up again. And that’s when the trouble started. For three weeks it’s been the same whining and pouting about how she doesn’t want to play soccer. I figured something terrible must have happened to change her mind overnight. Turns out something terrible did happen. My kid has FOMO. (Although if that’s a genetic trait she most definitely got it from me.) Before she was upset because she was missing out on playing soccer. Now she’s upset because she’s missing out on playing with toys with the other non-soccer kids. Turns out she still LOVES soccer. She just doesn’t want to do it in school anymore. This gave me a mission. Get Emma to enjoy soccer so much that her FOMO tendencies are no match for it. So this morning, kid-sized soccer ball in tow, I drove us to the one place I could think of with the best field for playing soccer, my middle school.

I guess time will tell if my underhanded plans work out in the end. We ran, we laughed, we rested and played again and again. Until the sights coming from the other side of the field peaked her curiosity and we headed off to investigate the rest of area.

The second best thing about a day out at the middle school field was that the last time I did anything resembling expending energy was probably mid-December. After that I got the mother of all colds and then went into busy season. Needless to say, my body is not happy with me. It’s started its own mission – by having one issue after another throughout April and culminating in one back spasm after another throughout Friday evening. Turns out that all it really wanted was to be active (okay, or just not sedate… I was running with a 2 year old after all, this wasn’t a sprint). After being in pain for the last month, I’ve never felt so good. Tonight Ryan complained that his legs were tired. I agreed mine were too, and that it was an awesome feeling.

The best thing about the day out at the middle school is that on the way downstairs to take a shower after we returned home, Emma squeezed my hand and told me that she had a wonderful morning.